Chapter Text
Eren slowly blinked his eyes open and he was met with a dimly lit, dusty room. The first thing he tried to do was move his arms and immediately registered that he couldn’t. There was something cold and rough that bound his hands, some sort of metal probably? Was he in handcuffs? Shit, that definitely wasn’t a good sign. He flexed his fingers and tried to break the cuffs with his super strength but nothing happened. Eren couldn’t seem to manifest any power in his arms at all. He huffed a frustrated sigh, power blocking cuffs, that just made his day a million times better.
All he had wanted was to try the new pumpkin spice latte at his favorite coffee shop. It was finally the season for all the pumpkin, pecan, and hazelnut flavored things. Fall had always been his favorite for that exact reason. He hadn’t even been on duty today, it was supposed to be his day off.
Whatever villain had decided it was funny to kidnap him when he wasn’t even in costume was owed at least two knuckle sandwiches, maybe three if Eren felt extra petty when he finally escaped.
But the mere fact that it had been his day off brought up another concerning point. How had the villain who captured him known it was him? Sure Mikasa and Armin often called him reckless, but even he was careful with his secret identity. As far as he knew, no one outside of the hero’s agency knew that the Titan was Eren Jaeger. Not even the nosiest civilians and certainly not any villains. It was highly sought after information, but it was kept under a tight lid.
“So… you’re finally awake,” a painfully familiar voice echoed throughout the room.
Eren’s blood instantly ran cold.
No.
How did he figure out his secret identity? Why out of all villains that could have possibly pulled it off, why did it have to be him?
The young hero snapped his head up with his blue-green eyes already narrowed in a glare. He was fully expecting Rivaille to be leaning with his weight on his left foot, arms crossed and with a smug smirk on his face. He knew the villain had to be positively gloating about finally capturing him.
His eyes widened in shock. Instead of the imagined scene that he had been so sure of, a completely different picture unfolded in front of him.
Instead of a gloating villain, he was met with a piercing stare from slightly below his eye level. Rivaille sat in a chair that was positioned approximately five meters away from him. The villain’s hands were restrained behind his back, likely also with power blocking cuffs. The area around his chair was bathed in a bright light from a circle of lamps above his head. Eren vaguely registered that those lamps were the only source of the light in the room.
“What the fuck is going on here, Rivalle?” Eren spat out.
“We’ve been kidnapped. Isn’t that obvious, brat,” Rivaille snarked with an obnoxious roll of his eyes.
“Well thank you, Captain Obvious,” Eren snapped back, anger rushed through him at the villain’s sarcasm. This was why he just couldn’t stand the villain.
The villain merely shrugged, completely unaffected by Eren’s anger. “What else do you want me to say? We’re stuck here, powerless. Not much else I can say about what’s going on.”
“Okay but why?” Eren found himself asking in spite of his hatred for Rivaille. He couldn’t wrap his head around just who on earth had kidnapped both a hero and a villain and imprisoned them together? And not just a hero and a villain but nemeses that had been at each other’s throats for years?
“Now brat, if I knew that I certainly would tell you then wouldn’t I?” Rivaille sarcastically replied with a shake of his head.
Eren threw his head back and grumbled under his breath at yet another annoyingly obvious answer. “If you’re not going to say anything helpful then keep your annoying mouth shut.”
“Would love to do that Sunlight, but if we don’t communicate there’s no way we’re getting out of here.” Rivaille replied.
“And what makes you think I want to work with you?” Eren said slowly as he gave the villain yet another nasty glare. “You’re in fact the exact last person on earth that I would ever…” The hero then trailed off as what Rivaille had called him had finally sunk in. “Wait. What the fuck?! Sunlight?!”
The infuriating villain didn’t even seem surprised at the outburst. Rivaille simply shrugged his shoulders, “What else am I supposed to call you? You’re not Titan outside the mask, which I don’t know if you have noticed… you’re not wearing it right now. I’ve always thought Titan was a stupid name by the way.”
The hero stared flabbergasted at his nemesis as words failed to form on his tongue. He jerked his hand in an action meant to touch his face as if to confirm the obvious that his mask wasn’t there. The intention was stopped because of course, his hands were still cuffed. Eren had known he wasn’t in his mask, he hadn’t been on duty when he had been grabbed, but in the midst of his argument with Rivaille, he had forgotten. His usual barrier of security was no longer there.
“Anything but Sunlight. If any name is stupid it’s that.” Eren retorted when he finally regained control over his tongue. “And excuse you, with or without the mask, I assure you I’m still the Hero Titan.”
Hang on. If he wasn’t wearing his mask. The hero reluctantly brought his eyes back to his silver-eyed nemesis.
Oh.
Well shit.
Rivaille wasn’t wearing his mask either.
Eren found himself staring as the realization slapped him hard in the face.
Rivaille was gorgeous.
It was hard to not call him such, what with his thin, sharp eyebrows that accentuated his upturned, narrowed eyes that almost seemed to shine silver. That paired with an angular jawline that could probably cut steel made Eren stare for much longer than he should have.
If Eren’s hands were free, he would have slapped himself with his powers activated just for thinking such absurd things.
“I know I’m handsome without my mask, Sunlight, but you could be a little less obvious with the staring,” Levi said with an amused glint to his eyes.
Eren quickly whipped his gaze away from the unmasked villain. “Who said I was staring? I definitely wasn’t staring. And stop with the Sunlight. I told you not to call me that stupid nickname.”
A slight chuckle left the villain’s lips, “Sure sure. You weren’t staring. Whatever you want to tell yourself. And I refuse to call you by your stupid hero name.”
“Oh, like your villain name is any better?” The hero shot back in an attempt at a comeback.
“It is actually. Rivaille. It rolls very nicely off the tongue,” the villain replied without missing a beat.
Eren groaned in annoyance and just threw his head back as he gave up trying to argue with the annoying man.
“If you’re done being unproductive, get your sorry ass over here.” Rivaille’s voice commanded as it rang across the room.
“You must be joking! You want to fight right now?!” Eren exclaimed in bewilderment.
“No, brat…” The villain growled back, obviously annoyed now. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re not in a position to be fighting each other. We need to work together to escape, like I tried to tell you earlier.”
“And like I asked you earlier, what makes you think I would ever want to work with you?” Eren angrily asked back.
“Because you don’t have a choice.” Rivaille replied, his face the perfect picture of calm. “I’d assume you don’t want to die down here. Too many items on your to do list for that. You hero types are all the same. You have to hurry and get back to saving people that you don’t know.”
“Being a hero and saving people’s lives is the most honorable job there is!” Eren instantly protested, completely diregarding Rivaille’s first sentence. “It is my pride to protect people who are unable to protect themselves, especially from the actions of selfish villains like you.”
“Yeah I’m selfish. Yeah I’m a villain. But I vastly prefer that over saving people who are more in a rush to get back to their daily lives than to stop and thank whoever risked their lives to save them,” Rivaille shot back, his silver eyes burned with the conviction that he had in his beliefs.
Eren frowned instantly at that statement as he thought of all of the people who have thanked him before, most of them besides themselves with relieved tears pouring down their faces. “That’s not true! So many have thanked me, they’ve been genuinely relieved at the reassurance that they were going to live. That everything was going to be okay.”
“But people still fear you, don’t they?” Rivaille threw back a question with a skeptical eyebrow. “They may thank you to your face but there are definitely people who fear your power."
Eren faltered at that, unsure of what to say in rebuttal because as much as he hated to admit it, Rivaille was right. He knew there were plenty of people who feared his strength. “People can be scared of me but still be thankful that they were saved. Regardless if they fear me, I’d still save them.”
“Of course you would. You’re a hero,” Rivaille stated in a tone that Eren couldn’t quite decipher. It didn’t sound condescending, it was almost softer? But that didn’t make any sense because the villain had no reason to be soft with him or to compliment him. They hated each other.
“I am a hero and nothing you say is going to make me doubt that,” Eren found himself reiterating with a bite to his voice, trying to bring the conversation back to a dynamic that he was more familiar with.
Rivaille simply sighed, “I’m not trying to argue morals with you here, Sunlight. My point still stands that if you want out of here, you’re going to have to swallow your hatred for me and work with me.”
The hero groaned again and his eyes slid closed in thought as he considered his options. He hated to admit it, but Rivaille had a point. Eren likely wasn’t going to be able to get out of this by himself. Mikasa and Armin could possibly come to his rescue but the hero didn’t know how long he had been missing or if they’d even be able to find him. The bottom line was, could he afford to wait for a rescue when whoever had kidnapped him could make another move at any second.
Eren huffed a reluctant sigh as he leveled a glare back at his nemesis. “Against my better judgment, I’ll work with you solely to escape. As soon as we’re out of here, I’ll be back to chasing down your darkness loving ass and I won’t stop until I see you behind bars.”
“Yeah yeah, you’ll never let me out of your sight and you’ll be the one to capture me and bring me to justice for all of my crimes,” Rivaille parroted with a sarcastic edge. “I’ve heard this song and dance before but the threats need to stop for now if we’re going to work together effectively.”
“Okay smartass,” Eren growled back. “I’m assuming you have some sort of a plan?”
“I’ve had one this entire time, but your loud mouth refused to shut up and listen,” the villain replied with a smirk.
Eren narrowed his eyes and did everything possible to hold back a sarcastic retort. Now wasn’t the time unfortunately. “Spit it out before I decide that working with you is indeed a horrible idea and that sitting here ignoring your existence would be much better.”
“Do whatever you have to do to get your chair across the room so you cast your shadow towards me.” Rivaille explained with an annoyed huff as if Eren should have already known what the plan was on his own.
“Wow, such a genius. How is that going to help if your powers are blocked?” Eren asked without moving a single inch. The hero didn’t see how moving pointlessly was going to help, as far as he knew, no one was capable of resisting power restricting cuffs. It’s what made them so popular for law enforcement with the containment of villains or rowdy civilians who had a bit too much to drink.
“I never said my powers were blocked,” Rivaille replied with an irritated sigh. “Whoever trapped us here was obviously being too cocky for their own good. My hands are just tied with ropes.”
“No power blocking cuffs? That seems way too risky,” Eren murmured in complete disbelief that anyone could be so careless with a villain who had a reputation for how crafty he could be. The hero’s eyes went to the circle of light that Rivaille was bathed in. There were shadows around this circle of light as the rest of the room wasn’t lit, but if the villain could have escaped, Eren figured he would have done that already. The man in question wasn’t saying anything and was merely staring at Eren with an uncomfortable expression on his face.
“So your shadow manipulation has a range,” Eren mused as his thoughts came together, “That’s good to know.”
“Yeah yeah, note my carefully guarded weakness all you want,” the villain groaned, obviously unhappy about the realization the hero came to. “Just get your ass over here and I can break us out of here.”
Eren glanced down to where his ankles were cuffed together to the chair he was sitting in with more of those goddess forsaken power blocking cuffs. He then raised his head to glare at the villain who was returning his stare with an expectant expression like he couldn’t see what the problem was. “How the fuck do you expect me to do that? My hands and feet are cuffed to this chair?”
“You can scoot, can’t you? I don’t care if you have to fall on your face! Crawl if you must! Just make your way over here.” Rivaille responded as if that conclusion was obvious.
Eren loudly grunted in frustration but he didn’t retort because it wasn’t like he had a better plan to get them out of here. The hero tensed his core muscles and started to shift his weight back and forth. The momentum that he started to build up with his hips allowed him to slowly scoot the chair forwards towards Rivaille.
Eren huffed with the effort as he glared at the distance he would have to cross. This would be a painfully long process, especially without his strength to aid him. He wasn’t out of shape by any means, it was quite the opposite. The hero was decently strong without his powers, but being as restrained as he was made the movements he was trying to execute very difficult.
“Any day now, Sunlight. I’m sure you’ll get there in, oh I don’t know, fifteen years at the snail’s pace you’re going at,” Rivaille drawled as he rolled his head to the side.
“Oh shut the fuck up! This is a lot harder than it looks!” Eren barked back as his shoulder bristled and his movements paused briefly. “Can’t you be more genuine with your encouragement?” Eren asked as he resumed his slow progress across the floor.
“Wow…” the villain dragged out with a voice that had all emotion sucked out of it. “Amazing… Best hero… Keep going Sunlight…”
“Urghhh! You’re so terrible at this! And enough with the Sunlight!” Eren groaned loudly, his words jilted as he continued his endeavor.
“You’re asking the wrong person for encouragement, Sunlight.” Rivaille replied with an amused smirk. “And the nickname is staying unless you want to offer your real name?”
“Over my dead body,” Eren bit back with no hesitation.
“Sunlight it is then.” the villain concluded with an amused look in his eyes.
Eren could have bit back another retort but with a final grunt of effort, he had finally brought his chair close enough to the edge of the circle of light. As soon as the barest hint of his shadow was cast towards Rivaille, it started to distort. The darkness bent towards the villain and seconds later Eren heard metal clatter to the ground as he was freed from the cuffs that bound his arms.
Rivaille had… cut Eren’s cuffs before his own…?
Why on earth?
Eren didn’t get too much time to ponder the villain’s reasons as shortly after, his feet were freed. As the hero stood and rolled his arms that were sore from being bound behind his back for so long, he vaguely registered the villain freeing himself from his own confines. Eren focused his powers and breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar thrum of power that rushed through his veins. He hated power blocking cuffs for literally this exact reason, it was too odd to not have the familiar energy vibrating just below his skin.
Eren glanced at Rivaille awkwardly, unsure of how to proceed now that they weren’t both restrained. The hero found his eyes drawn to the spinning sliver of shadow that the villain had used to cut their binds. He watched with wide eyes as the shadow curled itself around Rivaille’s wrist and almost seemed to harden and settle like a shadow bracelet. The motion shocked him as he hadn’t gotten such a close up look at the other’s powers before now. But that shock was greatly undermined by one crucial question.
What now?
Would they have to escape separately? Eren honestly wasn’t sure how long the villain’s offer of cooperation extended. Would Rivaille try to knock him unconscious or something?
“Alright now to get out of this room,” Rivaille mused aloud. His words broke Eren out of his confusing spiral of questions.
It didn’t seem like the villain intended to attack him just yet so he supposed that proceeding with caution would be okay. Realistically it’d be easier to escape together, the hero would just have to keep his guard up around the villain.
“I unfortunately don’t see a door,” Eren replied with a disappointed sigh. “But I suppose that would be far too easy.”
“Definitely,” Rivaille agreed easily. “A door would be simple since even if it was locked I could pick the lock.”
“Oh! I could smash through one of the walls! That would get us outside at least,” Eren realized as he eagerly held up his hands and curled them into fists. He summoned his strength to them which caused them to glow slightly.
The hero was too excited at his realization that he couldn’t have dodged the shadow even if he had wanted to. Eren groaned in pain as he felt the shadow slap him hard across the back of the head. The hero glared at the villain, “What the fuck?! Why’d you hit me?”
“Because you’re being an idiot, Sunlight,” Rivaille said with a roll of his eyes. “You can’t just bust through a wall and expect it to all turn out okay. What if we’re underground? What if we’re next to water or gas pipes? What if you destroy some foundation and the building comes tumbling down on top of us? What if we’re several stories above ground and you bust through a wall only to plummet to the ground below?” As each question was asked, the villain counted each option off on his fingers.
Eren waved his arms rapidly through the air, “Okay, okay! I get it! I won’t go and bust through a wall.” Inwardly, the hero begrudgingly admitted that his nemesis had a point. All of the concerns that Rivaille had brought up were valid and with no windows in the room, it was difficult to be certain of anything.
“I do have something that I can try, it has a risk though since it’s pretty exhausting for me,” Rivaille admitted with a bit of hesitance in his voice.
“What are you thinking? What are the chances it works out?” Eren asked immediately since he didn’t like the uncertain waver in the villain’s tone.
“Shadow teleportation,” Rivaille replied and Eren watched in awe as large coils of shadows moved across the ground and then rose to curl gently around their manipulator. “I do it all the time myself but the times that I have tried with other people have had varying results. It depends on the distance I need to travel and the availability of shadows.”
Eren glanced around at the dark room and allowed himself one of his more cheeky smiles in an attempt to cheer himself up more than his reluctant partner. “Well, the number of shadows shouldn’t be a problem.”
Rivaille rolled his eyes in obvious annoyance, “Now who’s being Captain Obvious? The problem here is the distance, Sunlight. I have no idea how far I’ll have to take us.”
“Is there anything else that we can do? Search for a hidden door maybe?” Eren voiced his thoughts aloud as he tried to think of any other way they could get out of here. “If not, is the risk worth the benefit of escaping?”
“A hidden door could be possible but we could spend a ton of time and actually be searching for nothing,” the villain pointed out. “If my powers can get us out of here, then surely our kidnapper could have a power that could bring us here without the use of a door. I think it’s worth the risk. I’ll only attempt this if you agree though.”
Eren was silent for a moment as he thought over his options. He could refuse and insist they look for a possible door but it wasn’t the best idea if he was being honest with himself. Neither he nor Rivaille knew when their kidnapper would return. It would be best to attempt to escape now if they could. Additionally, as loath as he was to admit it, Eren knew Rivaille was ridiculously strong and adept at using his powers. The hero had been chasing his tail for long enough to know that.
“Do it, I believe you can get us out of here.” Eren decided and he tried to put as much positivity into his tone as possible, both to be encouraging and to hide his own uneasiness over the fact that he had to essentially trust a villain with his safety. The hero tried to internally convince himself even further with the fact that if Rivaille had wanted to kill him or rekidnap him, the villain could have done it before freeing him from his cuffs.
Eren’s inner monologue was abruptly broken when a surprisingly strong arm curled around his waist and pulled him against a warm, toned body.
What the fuck.
Was Rivaille side hugging him?
Eren instantly started to squirm away from Rivaille when he realized what was going on. “What in the actual living hell, Rivaille! Does personal space mean anything to you?”
To Eren’s growing horror, instead of being able to squirm away from the villain, Rivaille instead tightened his grip and pulled Eren closer to him.
“Oh just bear with it for a few seconds Sunlight,” Rivaille drawled with amusement. “I don’t like this anymore than you do, but unfortunately for the both of us, I need to be touching you for this to work.”
Eren reluctantly stopped squirming. “Fine,” he groused. “Just get this over with.”
“Gladly,” Rivaille replied tersely and that was the only warning Eren got before it suddenly felt like his insides were being flipped inside out and then wrung out to dry. His awareness went fuzzy and he could not for the life of him figure out what exactly was happening or where he was at the moment even. He could barely see anything, the only thing he could discern was the vague feeling of Rivaille’s arm still around his waist.
In the next few seconds, the world came rushing back into clarity and the arm around his waist suddenly vanished. Without anything to hold his shaky legs up, Eren collapsed to the ground as his knees buckled underneath him. He heaved in great gulps of air as he tried to reorient himself. Shoes stepped into his vision.
“Sorry Sunlight. Can’t let you catch me today.” Rivaille’s voice floated by his ears and made Eren’s overloaded brain spin with vertigo. The villain was panting slightly but had obviously reestablished his bearings way faster than the hero himself had. “But if I find out anything about who captured us I’ll be sure to get word to you somehow. See you soon, brat.”
With that the shoes in his vision melted into the shadows surrounding the alley that Rivaille had brought them to. Eren found himself raising a shaky head to stare off into the depths of darkness that spread out before him with a singular question on his mind.
Had he just worked with his nemesis? Successfully?